Rise and Fall
by SpaceFrostbite
Summary: After destroying the Reapers, Shepard holds on to what life she has left and considers there may be hope for a future. Extended Cut post-Destroy mini-fic, so spoilers. Shakarian.


Hey everyone! In the aftermath of the ME3 post-destroy extended cut version I was stuck with a ton of Shakarian feels so I tried to write em out. I think it helped... a bit. Hehe. Spoilers, obviously. Hope you enjoy!

* * *

As Shepard stood at the top of the citadel clutching her side, breathing through the copper burn of blood in her throat, she finally allowed herself a moment to rest. Her body and armor were charred in the aftermath of Harbinger's beam. She stared at the three options before her. Back in London, in the middle of the chaos and death, she had had to make a decision, and damned if she couldn't decide which one was harder.

Turning Garrus away had been the most difficult thing she had ever done. Not even dying had been that painful – no, this hurt on a different level. This was what would scar her the most. She felt alienated from her body, her mind screaming in frustration and pain. She had looked in his eyes and seen the desperation of his plea in them, begging her not to go, not again, not to leave him. And she had almost stayed, she had almost given in and climbed back aboard the Normandy to be beside him and make sure he lived through his wounds.

But that was the problem – he would live for the day, for a week, for a few months, but the reapers would come. They would find them drifting in a system in the corner of the galaxy, and they would kill them all. The thought of watching her crew and Garrus die chilled her to the bone. She would not survive watching the turian she loved die, so she chose to jump into the fire instead. She didn't know if that made her strong or selfish.

So instead of walking him up the ramp, she had given him to Liara. She had traced the lines of his markings with her thumb down to the gentle ridges of scarred flesh, focusing on the contact, trying to burn him into her with touch. She had imagined she could feel her skin touching the leather hardness of his face. And then she had turned and ran, not trusting herself to make the right choice twice, afraid she would give in to him. She looked at him one last time as the dock closed, arm stretched out to her, with tears brimming, a war waging inside of her as vicious as the one they were in.

Staring at the glowing pillar of light in front of her, Shepard was stalling. She felt so small in comparison to all this. She had pulled all the strings in this battle, she had brought everyone together, but standing here in the moment that decided it all was incredibly unreal. Years of fighting culminated in this one opportunity. She would not waste it.

She stumbled towards the red panel on her right. Had there ever been a different choice? Destroying the reapers had kept her moving. It got her through Virmire and Ash, through death, through Thane and Mordin's sacrifices and all the missions. Shepard knew that though it had helped her put one leg in front of the other, as she did now, it did not make her strong. And with blood slowly dripping out of her side onto the pristine panels below her, she felt her energy fading.

Climbing the ramp was difficult. Her feet dragged, boots shuffling on the floor, brow furrowed in pain and effort. Her hair was covered in bits of blood and human debris that had stuck to her after being shot out of the beam. It weighed her down. Her pistol hung uselessly in her right hand and she wasn't sure she would be able to even hit the conduit coming in view. She stopped to catch her breath at the top of the ramp and suddenly felt sorrow in her bones that crippled her beyond her injuries.

Shepard allowed herself to admit that coming back from the dead once was impossible, but twice – no, even she could not fathom being able to do that – not without Miranda and Cerberus and a fancy lab. The second she knew it was real, she closed her eyes, a brief moment of respite after years of no sleep, and let the fear and weakness in her heart show on her face. She would have never given in if anyone had been around to see, but up here, at the end of the world, she was alone. In the end, she was always alone, the last defense of humanity, saviour of the people but never of herself.

Shepard opened her eyes and stared down the panel that seemed so far away and felt her knees shake. It was so much harder to pull the trigger, knowing each bullet brought her closer to death. She lifted her arm and pointed her pistol, firing and missing wide to the right.

_Dammit_.

She took aim again, her arm shaking, and saw the bullet ricochet off the floor. Tears of frustration rose in her eyes. She was so close, so damn close to ending this. Her body was failing her and it made her want to scream. It was so much harder in the end to be alone. She tried to walk and almost fell.

_In, out. In, out_.

Shepard focused on breathing and the pounding of blood in her head. She was faltering now, energy leaving her. Wounds that would have been healed by her suit before it was fried were left to bear her down. Her eyes were struggling to focus on the ground beneath her feet.

_Garrus…_

Tears form in her eyes. She wanted to be with him at the end. This had always been their battle to finish together.

_Looks like I'll be hitting up that bar a bit early_.

Shepard breathes in and out. She closes her eyes and fights back tears. She brings back the memory of touching his face and her hand turns to fire. She traces his markings in her mind and recalls the way his mandibles twitch when she lets him go. Then she remembers him the night before, soothing her fears, reassuring her, showing her how he loves her without saying the words. He brings her back to bed and she remembers the feeling of his weight beside her, how she fits perfectly in the space underneath his cowl and his head rests above hers. They fit together, two broken souls, and make a whole.

Shepard imagines the feel of his claws running down her arm, echoing over her skin and wrist, resting on her hand around the pistol. She can feel his armor pressing up against her back, familiar and comforting. Another hand traces down the left side of her body, follows her arm across to her wound and rests on top of her own, gently, reverently. The ghost of him cradles her.

She raises her pistol and takes aim and fires. It's easier when she's pretending he's here. The bullet hits and she staggers a bit in the ensuing explosion.

Talons tighten around her hands, supporting her. She feels warm breath on her neck, a memory of a moment, the rasp of his rough skin on her soft cheek as he bends to hold her. Mandibles flutter against her neck and jawline and she feels she has died already.

She walks forward on steadier feet, shooting again, recoiling again. The explosion is bigger and threatens to consume her, but she presses on. Again she feels the kickback in her arm, aggravating bruises and breaks, blood snaking around her wrist from her palm and falling to the floor.

She imagines what he would say to her now if he could be here. She holds the memories of him close, building a shelter around her with them.

_Shepard._

She is nearly at the conduit now.

_I gave you an order._

She is crying, the tears falling down her face immediately scorched off by the intensity of the heat from the malfunctioning panel in front of her. She is walking into hell, a blazing inferno of electricity and anger and all the despair of the world.

_I told you to come back alive. What will I do without you again? Don't do this to me Shepard._

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

One last bullet and everything explodes in red and black, streaks of orange and yellow racing away from her in every direction. Shepard feels the ground beneath her feet disappear and she is thrown back into nothing, off the edge of the platform, and as she looks down she can see through the ring at the center of the Citadel into the void of space. She struggles to remain conscious, fighting off the black bordering in on her vision. Her ears are ringing but she can feel the heat of chaos behind her and she knows she has succeeded.

She falls in the empty space between the Crucible and the Citadel, flying down to the wards, propelled by the force of the initial blast. She is caught between free-falling and floating as the gravity barriers around the Citadel struggle to maintain integrity. She ragdolls between the two zones, falling out and into gravity, head over feet countless times, struggling to breathe in the weak air fields.

_God, don't let me suffocate again._

Shepard tries to right herself but she is bleeding and broken and after a while she can't find the will to fight it. Her head is ringing and she feels weightless even when gravity catches her again, jarring her from floating to falling. She can see the Citadel tower growing closer and the finality of her situation slams into her with the weight of all her crushed hopes and dreams.

_Garrus._

He is the last thing she thinks of as she comes closer to hitting land. She sees him smiling at her, teasing her, boasting as he does. The roof has been blown off the tower below her, debris scattered in the anti-gravity pockets around her sometimes falling out and creating holes in the walls. She looks down at the council chamber, rebuilt less than a year ago, and finds it ironic that after all this time she would be brought back to this spot. At the end, she has returned to where it all began.

_I wanted so much more._

She's close now and she's starting to panic. Instinct and adrenaline kick in and she begins to flail uselessly. The ground is coming quick. She falls in and out of a final anti-gravity pocket that slows her down but not enough, not enough with the floor this far away, chunks of rock and concrete and metal scattered along it so roughly that it scares her. She can't catch her breath enough to scream as she braces to hit, arms twisted around her, rotating onto her back, but she manages one final whisper.

"Gar-"

And then world disappears.

* * *

Shepard lurches up screaming, her hands in front of her, fingers spread. She breathes heavily, sweat plastering her bangs to her forehead and sits in shock. She stands and touches her face in wonder and then her arms and legs and finally her abdomen where the bullet wound had drained her the most. But there is nothing there; and when she looks down she is in her Alliance blues, unstained and whole.

She looks up and takes in her surroundings. Above her, the Crucible is firing, and she watches in awe as crimson light spreads onto Earth and off to the relay. In space, reapers are dropping out of combat. Alliance ships are taking advantage and blowing chunks off of the machines now that they can access weak points unprotected.

_We won. Holy shit, we won! I did it!_

Shepard jumps and punches her fist in the air, grinning from ear to ear. The thrill of victory runs through her like a drug and she feels renewed. But something is wrong.

_But how… I fell. Where am I? How am I standing right now?_

She looks down again at her pristine uniform and then slowly turns around in the rubble. There is a boot beside her foot on the ground and she follows it up a leg, hips, chest, to a head. To a face.

To _her_ face.

She is on the ground, in ruin among ruins, bloody and broken. Shepard stands over her body and feels like she is going to be sick. She falls on her knees, the image of her passing through her body, and reaches out to caress the side of her face. It is pale and marked with the bloody tattoos of war. She pushes back the bangs on the empty shell of herself, brushes down the hair carefully. She has a growing feeling in the pit of her stomach, like a magnet pulling her spirit down into the body, wanting to be rejoined, but she resists. Shepard can't explain how, but she knows if she goes back now, she will not make it.

She watches the shallow rise and fall of her body's chest. She is still alive, indestructible as always. Cerberus really did put good money into her, to their credit. The nanobots running through her veins have integrated so far into her nervous system that they must be somewhere beyond purely synthetic – and they are keeping her alive now. They have shut her down to basic human functionality – she exists as a heart and lungs, keeping her brain going, using what little resources they have left. She has stopped bleeding in her side and Shepard marvels at how fast they are repairing her critical injuries. It is difficult to see herself in this way, once so strong. It reminds her of her own fragility. Her body is working and surviving, but not really alive.

She wonders, _What am I going to do now? _

She realizes there is nothing she _can_ do, so she sits down beside her body and watches the war end before her. She ignores the pull to join her body and looks at the stars and thinks. She keeps vigil over her last tie to the world and hopes and mourns.

Time is hard to judge beyond the measure of a day. She watches the sun come around the Earth and disappear and feels hope fading. Her body is a feat of modern science but she is still only human. She worries about the gravity and air generators failing, but there is nothing she can do about that so she moves on.

Then she worries about her crew, if they made it out alive. She makes herself sick thinking about it and puts her head down on her knees. She knows if anyone will find her, it's them. She thinks of all the things she will say to them when she sees them again and refuses to let "if" become a part of her vocabulary.

She thinks about Garrus. She puts all her hope in him because she knows he will never stop searching for her. He will be the last to give up on her, as she would be for him.

Her body works on and she sits and worries and waits, and on the sunset of the second day she looks up beyond the remains of the Crucible. Falling out of FTL drive above her head is the Normandy, battered but whole, and she watches it circle around the Citadel. She waits patiently as shuttles disembark and navigate down a Citadel arm away from her and tries to breathe through the panic. She hopes they will find her in time.

She closes her eyes and breathes, ghostly hand resting on her real one, trying to calm her body's shallow breaths with her deep ones. It doesn't work, but it's comforting to her to try.

On the dawn of the third day a shuttle lands on her part of the world and she runs to it, leaving her body behind, and looks at the rescue crew. They are turned away from her, gesturing dejectedly, tired and not sure they will find anything. She can't hear them. She screams in their faces, waves her arms, punches right through them. They can't hear her and she grows frustrated and panicky, desperate to try and direct them to her body, hidden by rubble. The workers stop talking and turn suddenly, and after a second she does as well.

Shepard looks up into blue eyes, tired and determined, and surprises herself when she lets out a silent sob.

His armor is more battle-worn than when she left him, and he is walking with a slight limp, but he is in one piece. The relief is indescribable, and she stumbles forward to him. She tries to catch his attention but it doesn't work. He turns away from the direction of her body and begins assigning quarters of search to the rescuers. She watches him direct, a leader without knowing it, and wants to hold him. She wants to reassure him like he always did for her, breaking past her walls before she knew it and making her love him. But she knows he cannot hear her.

Shepard walks around behind Garrus and gently wraps her arms around him, resting her head on his back. For now, she can do this, and hope he understands. She feels him stiffen slightly and turn, sliding right through her ghost and staring at her without seeing. She waves her hand in front of his face and he frowns.

She is desperate now, so she runs her hands up and down his armor, caressing his hands, up his arms, in the space between armor and flesh, trying to find any way to connect with him. She looks into his eyes and brings her hand up to his face and mimics her thumb sliding over his cheek as she did before the beam. Garrus steps back abruptly, looking concerned and a bit spooked. She laughs softly, eyes shining, flooded with relief and happiness.

She pursues him relentlessly, touching his fringe, his mandibles, the ridges on his brow, the line down his nose and follows it to his mouth, and he closes his eyes. She can see the way his shoulders drop underneath the burden of his armor, imperceptible to everyone but her. She rubs the skin on his forehead with her thumb and reaches for his hand. Shepard leans up into him and places the softest of kisses on his scars just above his mandible. He sighs. He mutters something she cannot hear.

She pulls on his hand, trying to lead him. Garrus looks to where she is tugging him with skepticism. She pulls harder, and when he turns around to where her body is lying, she grins.

"Yes! Come on you stubborn turian."

Shepard pulls on him with all the might she has and he begins walking slowly. She pulls with both hands, relentless and excited, beginning to hope that maybe they can make it out of this together. Maybe she can have a tomorrow with him. She leads him like he led her on the Crucible.

Garrus looks as if he doesn't trust his own feet anymore and she urges him onward.

"Just a bit further, come on, come on, _come on_."

When she brings him over the last pile of rubble, her leg comes into view and she sees him draw in a sharp breath and turn to yell at the rescue team. Her excitement fades out of her and she suddenly feels exhausted. Garrus is pulling chunks of concrete and metal away from her body and she lets herself begin to succumb to the magnetic pull.

Shepard sits down inside of her body and lies into it. She watches Garrus, who has finished clearing a hole and is leaning over her. She looks into the eyes of the turian she loves, who never gave up on her and would never leave her behind after the dust has settled. His hand is on her face, and she falls back into life. She can feel his hand now, warm and real, and her heart beats double-time through adrenaline and emotion. She gasps and sucks in air and immediately begins to choke on it.

"Spirits, Shepard, don't move," he says to her softly and she tries to quell the coughs and focuses on breathing. Everything burns and is bright but she revels in it because it means she's alive.

More hands join Garrus' on her body and she is lifted onto a stretcher, brought back to the shuttle. She drifts in and out of consciousness, and moments begin to blend into one another in a seamless expansion of time. She feels him run his hands over her armor, popping seals and easing the bite of metal in her flesh on her legs, hips, shoulders, and then he touches her skin with his and she forgets the pain. The back of one finger glides softly down her face to her neck, and along her collarbone, perhaps the only part of her left unbroken in her rise and fall.

Shepard tries to swallow, fails, and works at it until she can. Her eyes are dotted with black spots, increasing in number, but she's not ready to give in just yet. She opens her mouth and inhales, rolling her eyes to meet his and gives the faintest of smiles through bruised and bloodied lips.

"I came back."


End file.
